Sunday unfolds in Haiti

GONAIVES, Haiti -- Sunday, despite the obvious economic disparity, unfolds in much the same way in Haiti as it does in the United States, at least how it used to in the United States.

The many Haitian people I talked with today are serious about keeping the Sabbath holy. They rest in the afternoon and say they reflect on the many blessings in their lives. The people with so few material possessions in this world seem to fill that internal space with faith.

I awoke in my room in the small guest house beside Holy Family Church and School. And I awoke to contrasting images.

Before I full opened my eyes, in the pre-dawn gray haze, I heard what I only can describe as angels singing. Two young women are in the first stage of a life-long commitment to become Sisters of Mercy. Elza, who is about to turn 20 and is from the Haitian city of St. Marc, has lived with Sister Vincenzina for four years. Elza has completed high school and is preparing to become a nurse and nun. Joana is 19 and from here in Gonaives. She is completing high school this year and has lived with Sister for three years. She wants to be an English teacher. Both of the women are likely headed to Brazil in the next few years to begin their official formation.

Each morning, at about 5:30, Elza and Joana begin the day by singing morning prayers in Creole. They sang softly and sweetly, only interrupted by the crowing of roosters throughout the neighborhood. A few minutes after 6 o'clock, the sound of a choir and with drums filled the air from the nearby church. Mass was about to begin.

Then I opened by eyes to start my day. Directly above my head, on the inside of the mosquito netting, I saw a 3-inch cockroach. I don't know how the cockroach got into the netting, and I don't want to know. I slowly rolled out of bed and put on my shoes (but not before turning them over and shaking them out to make sure no visitors took up residence in them overnight). Then I shook the netting and dislodged the cockroach; I kicked it outside, into the garden.

I attended Mass at 9 a.m. It was for the children. The music was beautiful, and the rhythm of the Mass is the same regardless of language; it transcends national borders. The familiarity and universal nature of the Mass are a great comfort.

Sister gave the sermon and told the children that today's gospel calls us to love one another. Love is action, not words, she said. And she discussed the life of a priest who worked with a lived among the sick and eventually died with them, declining his family's invitation to come home to die. She also talked about St. Maximillian Kolbe, who willingly gave his life in place of another person.

There is great humor, a sly wit, in the air that belies the suffocating poverty. The humor and sadness alternate in a whiplash effect. Going back and forth between the extremes can be tiring.
In a land where half of the children die before age 5, the construction of coffins is a lucrative business. A woodworking shop stands about half a kilometer down the dirt street from the church. I have walked past its opened door many times, and late Saturday afternoon I walked in with my interpreter, Augustin.

The basic model coffin sold for $6,000 Haitian, or about $850 U.S. A more elaborate one sold for $10,000 Haitian. There was an unfinished dining room table with four chairs in the back of the open-air shop, but it was clearn coffins were the top-seller.

I complimented a craftsman for his workmanship.

Then came the sense of humor.

"You would die to have one, right?" he asked me through Augustin.

I laughed and explained how he had touched on American English slang. "Americans say, `To die for' when they want something badly, like `I would die for that BMW' or `I would die for that pair of shoes,'" I said.

"So," the workman said, "this coffin is to die for?"

There, of course, is a serious side to all aspects of life here, but residents of the slums say they laugh as often as possible to avoid thinking about the harsh daily life and limited prospects for the future.

Father Gerard, the Haitian priest who now works for Hands Together and oversees its projects in the Gonaives area, said many families who lost loved ones in Hurricane Jeanne's flood waters in 2004, they grieved twice. In fact, he said, Haitians grieve twice for a loved one. They weep for the loss of life, and they weep because they are unable to buy a coffin for the deceased.

I spent almost eight hours on each of Friday and Saturday and another four hours today in the homes of two Haitian families that live in the Trou Sable slum. With their advance permission, I have done into great detail about their daily lives and backgrounds, hopes, dreams and fears. On Tuesday, the father, Johnny, in one of my families, will walk me an hour from his home to a large cemetary in Gonavies. Two of his children, who died at 10 months and 6 months, are buried there. He does not know exactly where they are buried, though. The graves are unmarked.

I often read and think about the profanely beautiful and profound words of James Agee, that seem even more true in Haiti: "Each is a new and incommunicably tender life, wounded in every breath ... sustaining, for a while, without defense, the enormous assaults of the universe."

I will meet a third family tomorrow and begin the process again.

I do know what to say, except, "merci," when people tell me their home is my home. I can't help but contrast their openness it to the words that ring so false and outdated now on the Statue of Liberty, "Give me your tired, your poor ... " When did my country begin to operate with fear as its guiding principle? I guess it comes as no surprise that a nation of gated communities and fierce economic segregation wants itself to become walled off from the rest of the world. Give us your cheap laborers, though, willing to work for poor wages and pay taxes but receive no health coverage.

Besides recording the lives of families in Trou Sable, I will visit more projects in the next 10 days in this area that are funded by the U.S.-based Catholic relief group Hands Together. I will go back south to the village of Brunette, where a third well has been dug in an attempt to fill a 125,000-gallon with a larger pipe and generator. The goal is to provide safe drinking water and irrigation on the barren landscape.

I also will travel to Ti Riviere, where a Hands Together-supported clinic dispenses free medicine as part of a nutrition program. Another visitor arrived Friday, from France. He is a volunteer with expertise in computers, and he is helping wire more sites in the diocese.

-- Mark Curnutte